


Quiet Company

by fleurlb



Category: Terrible Love - The National (Song)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Inspired by Music, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 10:10:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurlb/pseuds/fleurlb
Summary: It's a terrible love and they're walking with spiders.





	Quiet Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhovanel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhovanel/gifts).



Every step on the darkened boardwalk made Caroline's heart feel more rattly, which was made worse by the terrible racket that their rolling suitcases were making on the weathered wood. But she could see a porch light and knew that the perfect beach cottage was waiting for them. She took a deep breath, touched her pocket to feel the reassuring bulge of the ring box, and ran over the words in her head one more time. 

It was both excitement and fear, like jumping out an airplane. Not that she'd ever be crazy enough to do something like that, not even if Meri asked, but she thought she might be just crazy enough to pull off this proposal.

They arrived at the door of the blue clapboard cottage and found the key exactly where the guy had said it would be. Caroline opened the door with a flourish, and Meri followed her in, exclaiming over the interior as they stashed their suitcases in the bedroom and grabbed a bottle of wine and glasses from the kitchen. It was perfect, all minimalist yet somehow nautical. And the crowning feature, the one that had made Caroline pick it was the great stone fireplace in the living room.

Meri sat down on the fluffy sheepskin rug, her back against the couch, while Caroline crouched in front of the fireplace. She plucked fat logs out of a wicker basket and arranged them in the way that she vaguely remembered from Girl Scout sleepaway camp. The fireplace was dusty and disused, a skein of cobwebs lurking in the corners, but she figured the smoke would blow them up into the chimney. 

After tucking some crumpled up newspaper and pine needles into the bottom of the logs to act as kindling, she picked up the matches and lit a few at once, which made Meri giggle. The kindling went up with a huge swoosh of flame, and Caroline fell back against the couch.

“You have a little something, just there,” said Meri, reaching out to rub a gentle thumb to Caroline's cheek. 

“I don't think the fireplace has been cleaned out in ages. You should've seen the cobwebs.”

Meri shuddered. “No, thanks. No spiders for me.”

“No spider here, just love,” said Caroline with a smile, mentally preparing herself for all the things she wanted to say next.

“That's the cheesiest thing you've ever said to me. And that list is very, very long.” Meri grinned, then leaned in and kissed her. Caroline intended to make it brief, but this kiss seemed to have a mind of its own. And honestly, Caroline didn't care. They had all the time in the world, or, at the very least, all the time in the long weekend. 

She ran her fingers through Meri's curly hair, giving a little tug that made Meri smile. In front of them, the fire worked on the logs, edging higher and becoming warmer. A sudden pop made them both jump.

Meri broke off the kiss. “What the--”

Caroline tried to pick up where they'd left off, murmuring “It's nothing. Just the logs popping.”

But Meri was moving fast. Before Caroline could process what was happening, her girlfriend was standing on the couch doing a pretty good impression of an Edward Munch painting. Caroline looked at the fireplace and could see small black spiders streaming out of it. Hundreds of them. Possibly thousands.

“Go on. Go wait outside. I've got this,” said Caroline, even though she had no idea how she would get it. Meri gave a strangled sound that might have been a thanks, went to the far end of the couch, and leaped to the door like the floor was lava. 

Caroline got up just as the tide of spiders reached her. Their numbers were overwhelming. There were just too many to squash. She vaulted over the couch, opened the window and lifted up the screen to give the spiders an escape route, and then escaped herself, closing the door behind her.

She found some duct tape in a kitchen drawer and taped all around the door to seal it in. Then, she called the landlord and explained the situation. He agreed to come over immediately, although Caroline had no idea how he was going to deal with the spider invasion or how she would be able to convince Meri to stay in a house that was full of tiny spiders. 

“One problem at a time,” she said to herself. She went into the bedroom and found a couple of blankets and brought them outside. 

She wasn't surprised by how far away from the house Meri had gone, even in the dark. She stepped off the boardwalk and trudged through the sand. The moonlight lit the dunes, and small clumps of beach grass cast their wavery shadows. A lifetime of living under city streetlights meant that she'd never really internalized that moonlight was actual light, capable of casting shadows. She walked up and over the first dune, and then the next, eventually finding Meri on the wide flat beach near the water, a few hundred feet away from the house.

Caroline draped a blanket around Meri's shoulders and put the other on her lap. She sat down next to her. 

“Sorry about that. The landlord is on his way to deal with it.”

“It's not your fault,” said Meri through a shiver that could have been cold or shock or fear. But she looked calm enough, and she leaned into Caroline and put the blanket around her too. The breeze off the water had a chill to it, and they sat in companionable silence.

Caroline slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out the ring box, keeping it hidden in her palm. She'd envisioned the perfect proposal, in a charming beach cottage, in front of a roaring fire. But that plan had been trampled by thousands of little spiders, so a beach in the moonlight seemed like the next best thing. 

“Meri, I want you to know that you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You make me laugh and sometimes want to tear my hair out, but, you're my person, the one who makes everything make sense.”

Caroline paused and opened the box to reveal the ring, a delicate twisting of two thin gold bands with a sparkling synthetic diamond nestled in a tension setting, a phrase that Caroline had never heard before she went shopping.

Meri made a hushed, nearly choked, sound and looked away.

“Will you do me the honor-” Caroline began but Meri cut her off by closing the ring box.

“Please, don't.” Her voice was strained, the way it always sounded before she cried. 

“Hey, Meri, what's going on? This isn't at all how this was supposed to go. I thought you'd be happy. I thought this is what you wanted.”

“In theory, yes, this is exactly what I want. But in reality, Caroline, I know this isn't what you want.”

“How can you say that? Why would I go through the trouble of buying the ring, booking the cottage, arranging the trip, doing all of this if it wasn't what I wanted?” Caroline struggled to keep the anger and frustration out of her voice, but it bubbled away all the same, something ugly under the surface. 

Meri sighed and buried her face in her hands. She shrugged off the blanket and wriggled around so they were facing each other. 

“Caroline, I love you. And under the right circumstances, I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you. It would be the most amazing adventure. But I can't follow you down that rabbit hole. Not right now.”

Caroline took a few deep breaths. “I don't understand why not. What are these mysterious circumstances?”

“Look, we've had a good couple of years, but we're getting to the point where we're starting to want different things. I would really like to start a family. You say you want to wait a few more years, but I can see it whenever we talk about it. If you stop and let yourself be entirely honest, you're not sure you're ever going to want kids. I want to stay in more, save for a house. You want to see the world. We've been able to paper over the cracks, but the structure isn't sound. Plus, don't get the wrong idea - it's not all you, it's also me. I know with my anxieties and phobias, I am A Lot, capital A, capital L, to deal with. You might think it's no big deal, but how many spiders do you want to relocate? How many times are you willing to scramble to find a paper bag for me to hyper-ventilate into. I could tell you had something big planned, and I never should have agreed to this trip. I'm sorry.” Meri tried to touch her shoulder, but Caroline moved away, refusing to take any comfort. 

“You're a coward. You know that, right?” The words were out before Caroline could stop them, angry poisoned darts.

“It takes one to know one.” 

The darts had hit the intended target. Caroline wanted to press on, cause more damage but she stopped herself. She turned away and put her elbows on her knees. She watched the waves roll in and out and tried to match her breathing to their rhythm. She opened the box and looked the ring, staring at the diamond until the bright sparkle was just another star in the inky sky.

“You know,” she began after a long and uncomfortable silence, “none of this is easy. It takes an ocean of will, of pure stubborn insistence, not to break. Every minute of every day. And being with you, being together, somehow, it's better. It's more. We're a good team.”

Meri's sigh was long and sad. “I've owed it to my heart to say all of this. It would be so, so easy to just say yes, go through the motions, fall into a life with you. Even to be happy about it. But if I give into this shared delusion, underneath it all, we would both still know the truth... You only did it because you thought you had to... Eventually, you would resent me.”

Caroline snapped the box closed and put it back in her pocket. She fell back onto the sand and stretched out. She felt bone-deep exhaustion. She felt Meri move closer to her and lie down next to her, their shoulders touching. She didn't move away. As much as she wanted to fight, wanted to prove Meri wrong, a tiny voice in her heart told her that Meri's words were the absolute truth. The problem with letting someone get so close, to letting someone know the real you was that they would always know when you were lying to yourself.

“So, what next?” asked Caroline. 

“The tide's coming in so we're going to have to move. But I'm not sure I can go back into the cottage.”

“I meant with us. Our relationship.”

Meri took her hand and laced their fingers together. “It's kind of like we're standing at the top of a cliff, getting ready to jump. But we're not both right at the edge, toes curled over the side, ready to go. One of us is a few feet back from the edge. If we jump like that, we're going to get hurt. So, we have to wait and work at getting to the same spot on the edge. Then, when we're both in the same place, when we both want the same things, that's when we can decide to jump.”

Caroline stood up and pulled Meri up with her. She wrapped her arms around her, and they pressed their foreheads together.

“I promise to try not to let it take too long,” she said. 

Meri smiled. “And I promise not to move before you get to me.”

They sealed the promise with a kiss. Caroline knew that Meri hadn't given her the answer she'd wanted to hear. But it was the answer she'd needed to hear. It wasn't a rejection. It was an invitation. And she was going to accept it and get to the place where they could take the leap together.


End file.
